But York city officials stepped in, and on Tuesday morning the city maintenance superintendent instead stuffed it into a battered downtown trashcan.

That way, Dave Rudolph said, people can enjoy the 30-foot-tall tree for the next two months.

It's all part of the annual fun, he said with a smile.

Rudolph - "just like the reindeer," he said - stood under York's community Christmas tree Tuesday morning, bent against the wind as his crew tethered it to a nearby pole. The same crew had pulled it from the ground earlier that morning in Warrington Township.

"In 30-plus years, it's one of the easier ones I can remember," Rudolph said. "It took about 45 minutes to get it out of the ground, and we were done."

The Christmas tree falls within the city's average, Rudolph said. Each spring, officials start looking for a tree between 30 and 50 feet tall, and this year there were about 15 calls and two good candidates, he said.

"It's a little shorter, but it's real symmetrical," he said.

Shaffer, who lives on Detters Mill Road, said he'd been worried about that blue spruce in his yard for a while. It was growing ever closer to nearby electrical wires, he said, and would have been cut down and burnt if the city didn't want it.

With the tree successfully donated, Shaffer can breathe a little easier.

"It's going to be a nice straight shot with the mower out there now," he said.

By mid-morning, a flat-bed truck carrying the tree pulled onto Continental Square. A crane from Jackson Cranes was put into place and police began diverting traffic as crews got to work.

First, they checked the trash can.

It's the same cement can city officials have used as a tree base for at least 20 years, Rudolph said. It weighs about 250 pounds and is kept in a city maintenance shed, he said. In early November, a crew uses a truck to bring it downtown.

"That's about the worst part of it," he said.

But the system works, Rudolph said, and soon enough crews had the base of the Christmas tree down, and were using cables to tie it to a pair of nearby trees and a traffic pole. Later this week, the tree will get about 2,000 lights, and it will be ready for the annual Light Up Night ceremony on the square on Dec. 7, he said.

It's the same process every year, Rudolph said, but it doesn't get old.

"Everybody likes this job," he said.

David Lehigh and Alicia Bowman, of West York, stopped on their way from the courthouse to watch. Lehigh said they're in the midst of a move.

The couple doesn't know where they'll be living, come Christmas. They're not even sure they'll decorate, Lehigh said, as the tree touched down on York's square.

"Maybe we can come back down here," he said, "just to open presents under the tree."

@timstonesifer; 771-2032

Related

For more information on Light Up Night, contact Inside Out Consulting at 717-848-9339 or visit the York City website at www.yorkcity.org.